Skip to the converter

VTT to SMI converter, without the upload.

Turn VTT subtitles into SMI. It is converted in your browser, so the file never leaves your device.

Drop VTT files here

or choose from your computer paste with Ctrl V

Ready · other file types work too0 bytes uploaded, ever

Convert to

How to convert VTT to SMI

  1. Add your VTT subtitles

    Drop VTT (WebVTT) files onto the box above, or click it to choose them. ToAny reads the file's contents to detect the type, so a wrong extension does not matter.

  2. SMI is already chosen

    Press Convert. There is nothing else to set. The work happens in this tab.

  3. Download

    Save the SMI, or download everything as one ZIP if you converted several files.

Why ToAny

  • Private by construction

    The VTT to SMI converter is part of this page and runs inside your browser. Your subtitles are never sent to ToAny or to anyone else.

  • No upload, no queue

    Nothing has to travel to a server and back, so the conversion starts the moment you press Convert, even on a slow connection.

  • Free, without an account

    No sign-up, no email address and no watermark. Add several files and download them together as a ZIP.

VTT to SMI: what to expect

VTT is less widely accepted than SRT by desktop players and editors. SMI can carry several languages in one file for the players that read it. VTT is at home in captions on web pages and in HTML video players; SMI is the usual choice for subtitles for Korean-market players and multilingual files.

The text is read as UTF-8 or UTF-16, whichever the file is. An older file in another code page is read using the charset it declares, or as Windows-1252 if it declares none, so accented letters in an unlabelled legacy file can come out wrong. A file that is not text, such as the picture-based subtitles of a DVD, is refused instead of being converted to nonsense. Of the styling, only italic, bold, underline and the position on screen (top, middle or bottom, left, centre or right) travel between formats; fonts, colours, outlines and effects do not. WebVTT comments, STYLE blocks and region definitions are skipped; the cues, their text and positions are kept. The file is written with one language class, and cues that overlap in time are shown together, as SAMI has a single timeline.

VTT vs SMI

VTT

WebVTT subtitles

WebVTT is the caption format of HTML5 video. It looks like SRT with a WEBVTT header and a full stop in the timestamps, but also supports positioning, styling with CSS, chapters and metadata. Browsers display it natively.

Opens in Web browsers (the HTML track element), YouTube, Vimeo, VLC and streaming players

VTT converter
SMI

SAMI subtitles

SAMI is an HTML-like subtitle format from Microsoft, with each cue a SYNC tag holding the start time in milliseconds. It can hold several languages in one file, selected by style class. It is most common in South Korea.

Opens in Windows Media Player, KMPlayer, PotPlayer, VLC and Korean-market players

SMI converter
VTT compared with SMI
VTTWebVTT subtitlesSMISAMI subtitles
Stands forWeb Video Text TracksSynchronized Accessible Media Interchange
TypeSubtitlesSubtitles
CompressionNoneNone
Introduced2010, by the WHATWG and W3CThe late 1990s, by Microsoft
Opens inWeb browsers (the HTML track element), YouTube, Vimeo, VLC and streaming playersWindows Media Player, KMPlayer, PotPlayer, VLC and Korean-market players
Best forCaptions on web pages and in HTML video playersSubtitles for Korean-market players and multilingual files
File extension.vtt, .webvtt.smi, .sami

Questions

Are my subtitles uploaded anywhere?

No. The VTT to SMI conversion runs inside your browser, on your own phone or computer. The file is not sent to ToAny or to anyone else.

Is anything lost when converting VTT to SMI?

No further quality is lost: SMI stores the decoded audio exactly. The result is identical in content.

Can I convert several VTT files at once?

Yes. Add as many as you like, convert them together and download each result or all of them as one ZIP.

How do I convert VTT to SMI on Windows, Mac, iPhone or Android?

The steps are the same everywhere because ToAny runs in the web browser: open this page in a current version of Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox, add the VTT file, press Convert and save the SMI. There is nothing to install.

Is there a file size limit?

Yes, but a subtitle file is small. Files up to 50 MB are accepted, far more than any real subtitle file. Beyond that the limit is your device's memory, since nothing is uploaded; a computer copes with large files better than a phone.